Social Media and the Library Facebook
Know your audience. Meet them there. Be an advocate. We all know that being a school librarian wears many hats advocacy and promotion being two of them. Parents and adult volunteers involvement can be a powerhouse in your library's growth and development.As Jenson points out in his article Integrating Social Media into Online Education, to be successful you must find out what your population is using Students of this age typically do not have a presence on social media but their parents do. That is why I went with a Facebook page for my " wish space". It is versatile and integrates with instagram to create a more visual feed.
Communication
My fictitious school is being modeled after a title one school in our district. This means that the majority of students are on free or reduced lunch. Parent involvement is relatively low as of now and would be one of growth points for my library. The facebook page would be allow for direct and indirect communication. I have placed a button for messages for any questions I would get. Posts of events and weekly happenings would be placed here. Creating questions and interactive fun things such as puzzles, trivia and questions would also be placed to hopefully drive up "traffic" and visits to both the page and our website. Creating a welcoming and accessible online and physical space would be the key.
Uploading resources and ideas could also be a valuable tool.
Instruction/ Collaboration
Using the Facebook page for both passive and active instruction and collaboration with parents is incredibly feasible with facebook live and video upload. Facebook's reels and stories can be used to show small things like how to check out a book or basic computer trouble shooting (as my library would also be in charge of managing our 1 to 1 devices) Calling for collaborators and to help name things, create things and spaces, or even to choose what our focus would be next would be easy using Facebook polls. Teachers could collaborate using this space as well. Showing off fusion lessons, or happenings in their classroom could be used and make it easier for them to promote their amazing happenings and allow them to see how cross collaboration could work for them.
Advocacy
Knowing our goals and planning out how we will meet them is only half the battle. Promoting our why, and engaging our population is the other half. Advocacy takes transparency and collaboration. Focusing on our mission and promoting our why with all of our posts will allow me to curate our messaging while continuing to engage people where they are. Relationships make advocacy easy. Using social media could help encourage and build relationships and overall forward what we are going for. Then we can use what ever data and stories are shared as qualitatve evidence to support our endeavors with our administration and public.
Megan,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you (and Jensen) that there is enormous value in knowing your students, their interests, and social media preferences. We should capitalize on these things to promote literacy and community in our library.
I think people don't realize how vital a librarian's digital presence is. Their website, social media platforms, and means of communication outside of the classroom are just as important as the physical environment. I love that your Facebook page offers fun and interactive elements, not just posts with information. Students will be more likely to use and visit the page if we provide them with activities, polls, posts, etc. that they can look forward to. If students feel more involved and like their opinion matters in the process, they will be much more inclined and excited about visiting the library.
I think the reels and videos offer parents and students a quick way to learn how to do something or about things that are happening in the library. I liked what you said about relationships making advocacy easy. I totally agree with that!